Accord Lets Gay Couples Adopt Jointly

By RONALD SMOTHERS

Published: December 18, 1997

NEWARK, Dec. 17—
Homosexual couples in New Jersey will for the first time be able to adopt children jointly, just as married couples can, under an agreement reached today with state child welfare officials.

Gay advocacy groups, which negotiated the agreement with the state, hailed it as an important step toward full recognition of gay and lesbian parental rights.

State regulations previously did not allow unmarried couples to adopt a child jointly in a single proceeding, requiring them instead to go through the already difficult and costly process twice.

While the settlement grew out of a challenge by gay and lesbian groups, the change also applies to cohabiting heterosexual couples, said Michelle Guhl, Deputy Commissioner of the State Human Services Department.

Michael Adams, staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, represented more than 200 gay and lesbian families in a class-action suit against the state policy.

Mr. Adams lauded the decision as ''historic'' and one that made New Jersey the first state to say specifically in its adoption policy that gay and unmarried couples would be measured by the same standards as married couples.

But other advocacy groups around the country and experts in child welfare policies suggested that the agreement was remarkable only insofar as it explicitly allowed a category of adoptions that have been quietly taking place in a number of states in recent years.

Anne Sullivan, an adoption researcher with the Child Welfare League of America, representing state child welfare officials across the nation, said allowing such joint adoptions was significant. But, she added, ''it has been going on rather discreetly'' in a number of states already. Once child welfare officials and family courts in states around the country got beyond the ''mythology surrounding the heated issue of homosexual adoptions'' in recent years, she said, such adoptions have become more prevalent in a variety of forms, from single-parent to stepparent adoptions and joint adoptions.

Only two states, New Hampshire and Florida, have laws specifically barring gay men and lesbians from adopting children. And in 1994, courts in both Wisconsin and Colorado interpreted their state laws as barring such adoptions, said Mary Bonauto, civil rights project director for the Boston-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders. By the same token, advocacy groups for gay men and lesbians successfully defeated legislative efforts last year to pass laws barring them from adopting children in Georgia and Missouri.

''But this issue isn't even on the radar in other states,'' Ms. Bonauto said. ''Courts are more used to having to coerce people to take responsibility for and care for their children, and so when someone, anyone, comes in asking to be made responsible, they are very sympathetic. For these states, sexual orientation is not the issue. Parenting ability is the issue.''

But to the Washington-based Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group, the New Jersey consent decree was ''a loss for children and a victory for the homosexual agenda.'' Kristin Hansen, a spokeswoman for the group, said, ''This is bringing state government in to validate and give its stamp of approval to these practices, and it seems to have government saying for the first time that a gay environment is a good one to grow up in.''

The agreement settled a lawsuit filed last June by the gay and lesbian groups and was signed by Judge Sybil R. Moses of Bergen County Superior Court in Hackensack.

Today's action follows a ruling by Judge Moses on Oct. 22 in the case of Michael Galluccio and Jon Holden, two gay men who had sought to adopt their 2-year-old foster son, Adam. State officials had prohibited the adoption, saying the law did not allow unmarried couples to adopt a child in a single proceeding, although they could go through the process twice.

While the judge had said publicly that she was allowing the joint adoption solely because it was in the best interest of the child, lawyers for both the state and the advocacy groups said she went much further in her written opinion issued in the closed adoption hearing.

Ms. Guhl, the Deputy Human Services Commissioner, said the judge's ruling had basically ''cleared up the ambiguity'' in the state adoption law.

''We had never had a court ruling on this issue, and suddenly Judge Moses said the law allowed us to jointly consider unmarried couples who we felt could be good parents,'' she said.

At a news conference here today, Mr. Holden and Mr. Galluccio reflected on the events that led to the consent decree. ''This all started out with Adam and two fathers trying to protect their son,'' Mr. Holden said. ''What we now have is a recognition that there are many different kinds of families.''

Mr. Adams of the A.C.L.U. project and Lenora Lapidus, the director of the New Jersey offices of the civil liberties union, said the action today allowed gay men and lesbians to confront local adoption officials if they are told they cannot adopt and get court fees in the event that they have to go into court to enforce the decree legally.

''We expect,'' Ms. Lapidus said, ''that many gay and lesbian couples will now apply to adopt.''

Photo: Jon Holden, left, and Michael Galluccio were with their foster son, Adam, 2, yesterday in Newark. Under an agreement in a lawsuit, gay couples in New Jersey will for the first time be allowed to adopt children jointly. (James Estrin/The New York Times)